It had rained the night before, so the soil was soft and damp. From my kitchen window, I could see Mrs. Dolores Hargrove, my 67-year-old neighbor, in her backyard wearing her signature wide-brimmed sun hat and an old floral apron, a shovel in her hand.
She was digging. And digging hard.
I frowned. Dolores had arthritis, and her doctor had warned her about overexerting herself. “Mrs. Hargrove?” I called out through the window. “Everything okay?”
No response. She just kept going, as if possessed by purpose.
I was about to step away when she suddenly straightened up. Her shoulders trembled. Then I heard it—one breathless word:
“Finally!”
And she dropped.
Panic surged through me. I bolted outside, barefoot and breathless, stumbling across the grass until I reached her. She was unconscious, her pulse weak but steady. I dialed 911, but my eyes kept drifting to the hole she had dug.
It wasn’t deep, maybe two feet. But something caught the light. I leaned in—and gasped.
There, beneath the soil, was an old tin box. The kind people used during the war to store valuables. The lid was half-cracked open. Inside were tightly bound stacks of faded cash, a string of pearls, and a yellowed envelope marked “To whoever finds this. Please tell my daughter the truth.”
When the paramedics arrived, I handed them Dolores’s medications, then quietly slipped the envelope into my pocket.
Later that night, after she was stable at the hospital, I opened it.